760C.6115/9–1444: Telegram
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Harriman) to the Secretary of State
[Received September 15—5:30 p.m.]
3484. Signature of agreements between Polish Committee of National Liberation and governments of Ukrainian SSR and White Russian SSR regarding evacuation of Ukrainian and White Russian population from territory of Poland and of Polish citizens from territory of Ukrainian and White Russian Republics was reported in newspapers for September 14.
Communiqué on agreements stated that they were signed in Lublin on September 9 after conversations which took place in atmosphere [Page 1433] of friendly, mutual understanding. They cover evacuation of Polish citizens who held Polish citizenship up to September 17, 1939 and of Ukrainian and White Russian population being evacuated from territory of Poland to Ukraine and White Russia.6
Announcement states
“The agreements provide that evacuation will be carried out on a completely voluntary basis. The population will be informed of time and conditions of evacuation by special plenipotentiaries of Polish Committee of National Liberation and of Soviet of People’s Commissars of White Russia SSR assigned for effectuating the evacuation both of territory of Poland and of territory of Ukraine and White Russia. The settlement and finding of employment for evacuees on the territory of Poland will be the responsibility of the Polish Committee of National Liberation, and on the territory of the Ukrainian and White Russian Republics, that of the governments of the Ukrainian and White Russian SSR. Persons evacuated from Poland to the territory of the Ukraine and White Russia will in accordance with their wishes be assigned to collective farms or be allotted a piece of land to carry on individual farming. Persons evacuated from Ukraine or White Russia to territory of Poland also will receive land in amounts provided for by the law concerning land reform in Poland. Both in Poland and in the Ukraine and White Russia resettled landless peasants if they so desire will also receive land on the basis of equal treatment.
“The agreements provide for various relief measures for the evacuees. They will be relieved of all arrears charged against them in payments in kind, taxes in money and insurance payments. All resettled households both on the territory of Poland and on the territory of the Ukrainian and White Russian SSR are relieved of all state financial imposts and insurance payments for a period of 2 years. Evacuees in places of resettlement will be granted monetary aid in the amount of 5,000 zlotys or rubles per farm for providing farm equipment and other needs, this loan to be repaid in a period of 5 years. The evacuees are also permitted to take with them various objects of household and farm equipment up to two tons of weight for each family and the livestock and fowl belonging to them. If the evacuee at his point of departure surrenders his harvest to the State the agreements provide full repayment to him of this amount of harvest at the point where he resettled. Those evacuees who at the point of departure [Page 1434] sow winter crops will receive winter sowings at the point of settlement, if possible in the same amount. The value of the movable and immovable property left behind after evacuation will be made good to the evacuees according to the laws existing in Poland and correspondingly in the Ukraine and White Russian SSR.”
Note further the decrees of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the Soviet Union of June 22 and July 14, 1944, permitting certain other persons of Polish nationality inside the Soviet Union to take on Polish citizenship, as reported by Ambassador Harriman in his telegrams 2452, July 6, and 2763, July 26, pp. 1291 and 1299, respectively.
Concluding paragraph of communiqué states that agreements were signed on behalf of Polish Committee by Osubka Morawski and on behalf of Ukrainian SSR and White Russian SSR by Khrushchev7 and Ponomarenko.8
Repeated to London as No. 179 for Schoenfeld.9
- In regard to the intervention of the Soviet Union in Poland beginning on September 17, 1939, see Foreign Relations, 1939, vol. i, pp. 428 ff. The text of the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the Soviet Union on the acquisition of citizenship of the Soviet Union by the inhabitants of the western districts (oblasts) of the Ukrainian and White Russian (Byelorussian) Soviet Socialist Republics, issued in Moscow, November 29, 1939, is in Republic of Poland, Polish-Soviet Relations, 1918–1943, Official Documents (Washington, n.d.), pp. 104–105. See also Foreign Relations, 1941, vol. i, p. 210, footnote 16.↩
- Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev, First Secretary of the Ukrainian Communist Party Central Committee (1938–49), Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (1944–47), and a wartime Lieutenant General (February 1943) in connection with service as a political officer on various fronts.↩
- Panteleimon Kondratyevich Ponomarenko, First Secretary of the Byelorussian (White Russian) Communist Party Central Committee (1938–47), Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (1944–48), and a wartime Lieutenant General (March 1943) in connection with service as a political officer on various fronts.↩
- Rudolf E. Schoenfeld, Chargé to the Polish Government in Exile at London.↩